East Rockhill Township still has 24-hour-a-day police coverage and there’s no change in the way for residents to get help in an emergency.

“Dialing 911 will still work. It’s just a matter of if it’s a time we’re covering, Bucks County dispatch will just send it over to us,” Pennsylvania State Police Sgt. David Nosal said.

With the start of 2014, Pennridge Regional Police Department will cover East Rockhill for part of the day and the state police will cover the rest of the day. Some residents have raised concerns that the state police, which cover a large part of Upper Bucks County, will not be able to provide the service received from local police.

East Rockhill and West Rockhill previously split the operating costs of the regional department and each were scheduled to be patrolled 24/7 by Regional.

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East Rockhill officials said this year, however, that they could no longer afford to pay the $878,271 per year for the police and that the 50/50 funding split was unfair because more police activity takes place in West Rockhill. East Rockhill budgeted to cut about $177,000 from police funding for 2014, while West Rockhill budgeted to keep its previous rate, but put aside $60,000 of contingency funding that could be used to make sure 24/7 coverage continued in West Rockhill.

The initial proposals would have led to layoffs and the department wouldn’t have been able to provide 24/7 coverage to either town, police Chief David Mettin said previously.

At the Dec. 30 Pennridge Regional Police Commission meeting at which Regional’s 2014 budget was approved, Mettin said each of the towns has now agreed to increase the earlier budgeted amounts by about $60,000. The new budget figures include $938,200 from West Rockhill and $761,000 from East Rockhill, he said.

“Based on this budget, West Rockhill Township will be at 24 hours a day coverage, East Rockhill would be at 18 hours,” Mettin said.

There will not be any layoffs, he said. The department will continue to have 10 full-time officers, including himself. Part-time officers will be scheduled for 24 to 36 hours a week, depending on the time needed, he said, but the amount budgeted for part-timers is calculated as an average of 28 hours per week.

Mettin said he has been in contact with the state police at Dublin about coordinating the coverage between the two departments.

The police budget still has to receive official approval from the East and West Rockhill boards, but that’s expected to happen in early January, Jim Nietupski, an East Rockhill Township Board of Supervisors member and chairman of the Regional commission, said.

The three East Rockhill and three West Rockhill board members were all present at the Pennridge Regional Commission meeting and none objected to the police budget.

The Dec. 30 meeting also included recognition of thank you letters sent to Regional Officers Harry Hallman and Daniel Bartholomew for their assistance during a November police incident in Perkasie.

Hallman was also mentioned at the last West Rockhill meeting when a resident spoke about her appreciation for Hallman’s help, including his remaining on the scene after the scheduled end of his shift, when there was a call for medical assistance at the woman’s home, West Rockhill board member Jay Keyser said.

The state police respond to medical or fire calls if there is a specific reason to do so, but do not routinely respond to all fire and medical calls, Nosal said.